The new mind spike...

[Kithelle]

So did they basically just revert it back to the original mind spike except with a little extra AoE damage? Or do the DoT's stay intact?

[spiritsurge]

So did they basically just revert it back to the original mind spike except with a little extra AoE damage? Or do the DoT's stay intact?

It removes your dots from the target and does aoe damage based off the number of dots you detonated.

[Kithelle]

It removes your dots from the target and does aoe damage based off the number of dots you detonated.

"sighs" I was afraid of that...do they have no idea what to do anymore? They just basically turned it into the original mind spike with a little extra AoE Mechanic...still don't see anything that would replace StM for a skilled player.

[Noradin]

This version does not seem very usable a talent, why not have it extend the duration of the dots instead and balance it around that?

[zito]

It's pretty garbage, the only time you want to do it is if your dots are about to fall off, it's counter productive to void form and it just doesn't work with mastery. And even if you do pick this it's only a small dps increase but garbage compared to stm (even with the nerf).

They have absolutely no idea what the fuck they are doing, yet again, since cataclysm.

[Veyne]

So did they basically just revert it back to the original mind spike except with a little extra AoE damage? Or do the DoT's stay intact?

Kinda the same, Kinda different. It's more of a consuming mechanic rather than removing.

[Segus1992]

If you look at the 7.1.5 changes it's pretty apparent that the design they're going for with Shadow is that applying DoTs should be a central point of the spec, which it isn't when so many things refresh them. Hence why Void Bolt is being nerfed (for ST) and also why Mind Spike goes back to removing DoTs.

Do I agree? I dunno, Mind Spike at least has to be buffed a lot to be a choice, but overall that's clearly the design they're going for.

Lingering Insanity also helps this design, as less haste in between Void Forms means more applying DoTs.

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Kinda the same, Kinda different. It's more of a consuming mechanic rather than removing.

Kind of like Shadow Word: Insanity from years ago, that (I think) never made it into the game. Could've been neat, with the right effects.

[Kithelle]

I keep wanting to try my SP...but I don't like the design they're doing...promised they'd change things up and StM is still obviously the best choice...they change VB to add to DoTs then change MS to remove or *pop* DoT's...

More and more every day I feel like the devs are just chickens running around with their heads cut off...

[Nyel]

Kind of like Shadow Word: Insanity from years ago, that (I think) never made it into the game. Could've been neat, with the right effects.

Shadow Word: Insanity was in the game for a few weeks after the launch of Mists of Pandaria. I loved that talent and thought it was pretty neat back then, I was very sad when they decided to remove it.

I posted something about Mind Spike in the "New Shadow nerfs?" thread:

Mind Spike doesn't feel that bad but the damage is a let down. For purging our DoTs from the target it needs a damage increase by at least 20-30% (it's something like 5% of overall damage in a ST rotation). Then I would consider it as a nice reminiscence to CoP playstyle.

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It's pretty garbage, the only time you want to do it is if your dots are about to fall off, it's counter productive to void form and it just doesn't work with mastery. And even if you do pick this it's only a small dps increase but garbage compared to stm (even with the nerf).

It's not that unlikely that you need to reapply your DoTs when you're in Voidform... so you could even use Mind Spike then (but as you said, it doesn't benefit Mastery and it just doesn't feel good during Void Form).

[Baelic]

It's not that unlikely that you need to reapply your DoTs when you're in Voidform... so you could even use Mind Spike then (but as you said, it doesn't benefit Mastery and it just doesn't feel good during Void Form).

With my tests on the PTR I've found that the only time I'd needed to refresh dots during void form was if I was dotting 3 targets at once, with the off-time needing to refresh SWP.

[Raxz]

There's an obvious disconnect between developer and player mentality so to me the question we should be asking is what can be done to make Blizzard (specifically, their class design team) understand why people take some talents over others?

Could start with laying out some (what seems like) basic concepts...

1. Players optimize; they will never pick utility over a DPS, HPS, mana regen, or mit upgrade and they will never pick an upgrade that's irrelevant to their spec (i.e. mitigation for DPS players). This is why many of the legendaries and some talents are regarded as utter garbage.

2. Players optimize for content; they will pick all AOE talents for dungeons and all ST talents for raids unless you make a dungeon that is very ST heavy and a raid that's every AOE heavy. Currently neither of these are really represented all that strongly, which is why some talents and even entire classes are regarded as utter garbage at some things and amazing at others. There are other examples like more HPS vs. more mana regen and etc. If you're seeing a lack of choice here, it's because there's a talent on the row that's overtuned making it dominate in places that it shouldn't. Or the other two are just undertuned. Sometimes there's a row that should have a real choice but doesn't for some reason (e.g. all 3 talents are ST throughput options, in which case people will just do math and pick the best one.)

3. Super casual players (LFR/LFD types and solo players) often pick talents for what affects their gameplay the best. If there's a talent that not even these people EVER pick, even if it's an incredible performance boost, it's a sign that it's just straight up designed badly and not fun. Although tread carefully here because what's not fun to a casual isn't the same as what's not fun to others (the whole Surrender to Madness debacle is a perfect example here)

[Nyel]

With my tests on the PTR I've found that the only time I'd needed to refresh dots during void form was if I was dotting 3 targets at once, with the off-time needing to refresh SWP.

Really? I casted at least 4-5 Mind Spikes during Voidform on my PTR testings (~12min dummy fight) because I couldn't extend the duration to an acceptable amount (I only did ST damage - might have been my fault but the new Void Bolt just feels wrong and really counterproductive).

[GT4]

"sighs" I was afraid of that...do they have no idea what to do anymore? They just basically turned it into the original mind spike with a little extra AoE Mechanic...still don't see anything that would replace StM for a skilled player.

The original mind spike at least did acceptable damage when targets wouldn't survive long enough for DoTs. This version barely does more DPS than mind flay without DoTs to detonate. If you spec into void ray, it actually deals significantly less DPS than mind flay now (mind spike no longer benefits from void ray).

E.g. some sample numbers from my shadow on PTR (no buffs, void form, etc.):
Mind Flay: 90,136 damage / 3 seconds (30,045 DPS)
Mind Flay /w Void Ray: 126,188 damage / 3 seconds (42,063 DPS)
Mind Spike: 53,258 damage / 1.5 seconds (35,505 DPS)

[Baelic]

Really? I casted at least 4-5 Mind Spikes during Voidform on my PTR testings (~12min dummy fight) because I couldn't extend the duration to an acceptable amount (I only did ST damage - might have been my fault but the new Void Bolt just feels wrong and really counterproductive).

A couple things might help explain this:

- I wasn't using StM
- I always made sure to refresh dots before entering Void Form
- I wasn't playing around with Mind Spike

[Kithelle]

The original mind spike at least did acceptable damage when targets wouldn't survive long enough for DoTs. This version barely does more DPS than mind flay without DoTs to detonate. If you spec into void ray, it actually deals significantly less DPS than mind flay now (mind spike no longer benefits from void ray).

E.g. some sample numbers from my shadow on PTR (no buffs, void form, etc.):
Mind Flay: 90,136 damage / 3 seconds (30,045 DPS)
Mind Flay /w Void Ray: 126,188 damage / 3 seconds (42,063 DPS)
Mind Spike: 53,258 damage / 1.5 seconds (35,505 DPS)

Seeing all of these promises to fix things for classes I enjoy but so far all I've seen are a few slight alterations and juggling around of talents, nothing like they promised and so far nothing about baking must take talents into the spec itself.

[Catbug]

Seeing all of these promises to fix things for classes I enjoy but so far all I've seen are a few slight alterations and juggling around of talents, nothing like they promised and so far nothing about baking must take talents into the spec itself.

It's funny, instead of doing what people thought they would such as turning talents that are overly picked into passives and making new talents or buffing under preforming ones, they instead removed a passive and made it into a shittier version as a talent.

[Deleted]

Current Mind Spike is Shadow Word: Insanity 2.0. It was talent before Solace&Insanity, our 45 lvl talent in MoP. It was scraped because of how bad it was. And now its back. As 100lvl talent. We're in vicious circle of retarded design.

[Nyel]

Current Mind Spike is Shadow Word: Insanity 2.0. It was talent before Solace&Insanity, our 45 lvl talent in MoP. It was scraped because of how bad it was. And now its back. As 100lvl talent. We're in vicious circle of retarded design.

Shadow Word: Insanity wasn't that bad. It only consumed Shadow Word: Pain and you could only use it when SWP had less than 6 (or so) seconds left - and the damage was quite nice. I never understood why they removed it. Mind Spike is like SW: Insanity but worse in nearly every aspect (cast time, consuming two DoTs, damage).

[Kithelle]

It's funny, instead of doing what people thought they would such as turning talents that are overly picked into passives and making new talents or buffing under preforming ones, they instead removed a passive and made it into a shittier version as a talent.

Yeah...starting to feel like these devs are flat out lying sometimes.

[Twintop]

Shadow Word: Insanity wasn't that bad. It only consumed Shadow Word: Pain and you could only use it when SWP had less than 6 (or so) seconds left - and the damage was quite nice. I never understood why they removed it. Mind Spike is like SW: Insanity but worse in nearly every aspect (cast time, consuming two DoTs, damage).

Shadow Word: Insanity is just as horrible as everyone remembers. Here's a refresher from back in the day:

https://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2327#p19275